Design Time

Don't know your Castor from your Brothers Dressler? This weekend's Come Up To My Room, Radiant Dark and the Interior Design Show are the perfect spots to get schooled on the city's design who's who. So you don't hit the shows entirely ignorant of our interiors scene, here are five emerging names you need to know.

Marco Jacob

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: "Design is about collaboration. When I start a project, I think of the materials suitable for its application. Then a form suggests itself, and then I think of craftsmen who can execute my vision."

WHERE TO GET IT: Jacob is in talks to retail work with local shops like Ministry of the Interior (80 Ossington, 416-533-6684). atelierjacob.com.

Amrita Takhar

DESIGN SHOW PROJECT: Collaborating with Andrea Chin (with whom she created the God Save the Queen mirror, pictured, for last year's Radiant Dark) and David Chang, Takhar is furnishing a Come Up To My Room space with urban wilderness mirrors, coat hooks and lighting pieces.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: "Be thoughtful. Be respectful. Fret over the details."

WHERE TO GET IT: Endangered Structures pillows in the shape of igloos and grain elevators are available at Distill (55 Mill, building 47, 416-304-0033). amrita.ca.

Grant Heaps

DESIGN SHOW PROJECT: For Radiant Dark, Heaps reproduced a 2-inch-square vintage cross-stitch image of a stag as a 3-by-4.5-metre pixilated wall hanging using 20,049 fabric scrap squares from other quilting projects.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: "The quilts give me a place to play with the patterns I see around me. I experiment, tell a story and explore and enjoy my obsessions."

Tamara Rushlow

DESIGN SHOW PROJECT: Rushlow's Flute chandelier for Radiant Dark is made from suspended shafts of translucent white bone china that create a soft lighting effect.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: "I'm not a design scenester. I just love working through the design process and bringing a 2-D material to life."

WHERE TO GET IT: Lighting and home accessory products like her Jagged ceiling pendant and Ply lamp (pictured) are available at Made (867 Dundas West, 416-607-6384). tamararushlow.com.

Matthew Nye

DESIGN SHOW PROJECT: Gladstone artist-in-residence Bruno Billio teams up with Nye on Conversation Piece, a suspended wooden school chair they say explores the function and dysfunction of household furniture.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: "A building should be designed around the individual, the neighbourhood, the city, the society, architectural theory, the environment - but never too much of one at the expense of another."

WHERE TO GET IT: Look for Nye's next conceptual installation opening in Made's cooler space in May.